


Look Back

by sfiddy



Category: North and South (UK TV), North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell | UK TV
Genre: A+ Victorian pining, F/M, John Thornton and his deep angst, deep examination of a few seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-21 00:45:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16149002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sfiddy/pseuds/sfiddy
Summary: It was not so far down.  He could easily bear the impact.  Better that than let her ride away.John Thornton on the balcony.





	Look Back

**Author's Note:**

> I broke my toe and rewatched North and South. As one does. 
> 
> Sorry it's short-- in my defense, the scene is, too.

It was at least as tall as a man. Taller. Probably close to a ten or eleven foot drop by his estimation.

How many times had he stood there? Countless times he’d watched deliveries both in and out of the mill. Witnessed the men, women and children arrive at their times then march away, tired, covered in fluff, and paid. 

How many times had he leaned upon that rail? A shoddy afterthought, bolted to the stone pillars.

Miss Hale had looked so worn. Tired, weary, and careworn by the repeated blows. No fury pulsed in her today. She was not the woman who’d demanded he speak here, from this very balcony, then stood before him, one woman against a mob. A furious, pulsating rabble of men and women and she’d stood them down.

Her blood had been so red. 

There was no fire in her today. Only weariness from one loss too many. It had taken all of this for her to bend. 

“Look back.”

She’d clung to him, arms around his neck and heaving herself between him and the mob. A passionate archangel, wielding words for swords and offering herself as a shield.

It was not so far down. He could easily bear the impact. Better that than let her ride away.

The bolts were rusted, he could tear them out with a good tug or a well placed kick. A kick would be better, for the bar would bend in the middle and pull the bolts. Yes.

He could run down the stair. If the carriage went slow, he would take the stair. 

But if the carriage went to a trot.

Christ, he didn’t care. Fast or slow, he would jump.

“Look back at me.”

Already, John’s skin tingled with life, his hair standing up. He would jump from this balcony. If Margaret Hale looked back, he would tear the bolts free and leap from this damned balcony, the balcony that had tasted her blood, his panic. He would leap and chase down the damn carriage.

He would overtake it and cling to it as she had him. He’d tear the door open and beg her to stay. Stay here with him at Malborough, in Milton, anywhere so long as she was near. He’d take to his knees in the filth, groveling, and beg her to stay as flurries of snow peppered the ground around him, freezing him here. Covered in white.

Tracks. The carriage tracks left the courtyard of his mill. John stared at the slashes of black, cuts in the sinless white of new snow. 

He did not know how long he stood on the balcony. When his mother came, his hand was nearly frozen to the rail, yet barely shivering. His knuckles were white and beginning to crack.

She did not look back.


End file.
